pedro wrote:How does one tell if a bird is 3+? While hunting without getting a good look at the spurs? I have shot long spurred birds with a 10" beard that did not have amber tips. For me, a longbeard is what I look for to determine if it is a shooter.ICDEDTURKES wrote:I understand what you are saying BUT you are talking about natural mortality NOT certain mortality. Going to your 13 jake instance and hearing 3 gobblers the next year, if you are to kill a jake the year before who is to say you would not have heard 4 on that morning. You pulling the trigger on that jake ensures you will not hear him the next year. Dead Turkeys Dont Gobble, this year, next year or the next. Today's fast paced society dictates everyone has to get a kill as fast as possible so that they can get a picture of them with their Jake all fanned out on facebook or forums.BuckyT wrote:I've killed a few over the years. I don't target them specifically. I'm not going to say people can't shoot jakes simply because I don't like to shoot them. Seems pretty selfish to me. There is really no data absolutely proving passing jakes promotes a massive increase in gobbler numbers the following year.
If you see a group of 6 jakes, the odds are usually half of them will die from something else beside lead or TSS poisoning before the season opens the following year. Sure if you don't kill all 6 of them you'll probably ensure that 1 or 2 of them make it. Maybe.
I saw a group of 13 jakes one season. It was the next to the last day of the season. The following season I returned thinking the woods would be filled with gobblers....
Wrong... Heard only 3 or so birds gobble on that piece of dirt.. Managed to kill one of them..
I'm new here and if this is a dead horse thread, my apologies.
A good contingent of us on hear try to promote the shooting of mature turkeys. It may be glassing him 1,2,3, or more times, or having trail cams to ensure we are shooting 3+ year old gobblers and holding out. Many of us form "Hit Lists" Nothing sickens me more than a neighbor showing up with a 10 inch bearded gobbler bragging and than aging him and finding out he was two. Do you know what that gobbler could have been 2-3-4 years down the road. Shooting a good longbeard 2 year olds is nothing but highgrading. No different than shooing a 120 2.5 year old 8 point, that buck never realizes potential. I am not for shooting jakes and folks that brag about killing 2 year olds are just diminishing the quality.
And dont give me the I need the meat argument. Turkey is dirt cheap, its cheaper to go to the super market and buy turkey than to fuel up the truck to go out in the woods looking for one. Nobody needs to shoot a Jake to have meat in the freezer, go buy it, plus a more mature gobbler gives more meat thus you should be shooting mature ones. "Or I didn't know it was a Jake" if you're unsure of your target don't shoot, could be a guy reaping for crying out loud. Or the "if I don't shoot him someone else will" argument, all you can control is you shooting him, he will be dead. Or the "he was a scrub cull Jake" nobody can look at a Jake regardless of how late he was born and judge whether he will have a 12 inch beart or 1.5 spurs in 3 years.
I too would like to know how to judge a 2 yr old from a 3 yr old while hunting. My best set of spurs 1.75" matching set only had a 10.5" beard.